


I don't wanna know the way down...

by by_no_one_more_than_me (Lady_Cleo)



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Anger/Bloodshed as an Aphrodisiac, F/M, One Scene Two Takes, Season Finale, dual realities, hell hath no fury, sex & death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 23:58:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14532198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Cleo/pseuds/by_no_one_more_than_me
Summary: "Hey, honey. I'm home..." The words stop Beth cold a moment, as she rapidly assesses data and considers conclusions to draw.That's Rio's voice. She's reacting to it. This is either gonna end really well, or really badly.Dual takes on the finale's closing stinger. Rated for language, sexual content and minor graphic violence.Title from Lips by the xx.





	I don't wanna know the way down...

**Author's Note:**

> so as soon as I watched the finale today (which wrapped about 10 minutes before I wrote the first of this) I went running for the laptop and my playlist started up. this fic was born from a lot of "WHAT?!" and "are you KIDDING me?!" and the song that came on right away.  
> Lips by the xx, namely for the lyric "my name on your lips, your air in my lungs" and other extremely fitting Brio sentiments, which I used as the section titles. seriously, go give it a listen.

**_1. Chemistry is rare in a two, three time affair..._ **

Beth is riding a serious rush when she walks through her door. The trap has sprung and Rio is in a cage where she could try and convince herself he belongs. She and her girls will be fine and Dean's lying ass is about to become a distant memory. She's debating how she wants to celebrate (sugar or booze, cheesecake or Scotch) when she hears it.

"Hey honey. I'm home..." The words stop Beth cold a moment, as she rapidly assesses data and considers conclusions to draw. That _could_ be Dean's voice, if he's still hopped up on painkillers and slightly slurring... and has somehow found that husky razor edge to his voice available in pill form.  _Cut the shit, Beth,_ she scolds herself.  _Okay._

That's Rio's voice. 4 words and she's already reacting to it. The rush in her blood is only partially fear, and fear doesn't make you wetter than a field of morning daisies. This is either gonna end really well, or _really_ badly.

"I woulda been here sooner, but I got tied up." Still no clear winner. He draws out the soft wet pop of the plosive and Beth wants to feel it against her skin. She swears there was a little pause before the last two words, leaving a scene told in pornographic cuts flashing in her mind. 

Forcing one foot in front of the other, she rounds the dividing wall and sees Rio - bloody, disheveled, handcuffs dangling from one wrist, sitting at the head of her table like some warped patriarch. She's momentarily distracted by the sinewy lengths of his arms under short black sleeves, and doesn't immediately notice the overturned chairs and looted holiday tableware strewn across the Berber carpet. Her mom's antique punch bowl looks like a forlorn mechanical turtle, and the unbroken candle holders barely register a thread of relief before she meets his dark gaze.

They always end up alone together. She swallows hard, trying not to worry about his injuries, trying not to focus on the corded muscles winding wrist to forearm to bicep, the likelihood that he's here to "take care of her" only a faint alarm in her mind.

His voice wraps around a taunting "surpriiiiise..." and she doesn't even care if he **is** gonna kill her. She just wants to get close enough to taste his lower lip, test its give between her teeth... maybe let her hands finally do a quick survey of the shredded muscle he keeps under those clothes... look him dead in the eye as she presses her mouth to his for one last first kiss.

She keeps walking, already imagining sliding into his lap, her thighs slotting around his hips. He pushes out of the chair with a barely concealed wince, and brings her to a halt again a little more than an arm's length away. The 'little more' is the gold-inlay 9 mil he's got a breath away from her forehead.

"I thought I told you not to point any more guns at me," she sighs, soft voice laced with seduction like expensive lingerie.

"What the fuck you gonna do about it, _Elizabeth_?"The twist of her name in his teeth feels beautiful, a gorgeously cruel term of endearment. She doesn't answer, just purses her lips, tilts her chin up a few defiant degrees and pierces molasses orbs with china blue. She doesn't move when the muzzle of the gun follows a path his fingers should be taking- nudging a rogue lock from her temple, caressing the curve of her cheek, sliding along her jawline and down the column of her throat like a lover's tongue, whispering over the top of her breast to settle in the shadow of her cleavage. It's not quite leveled at her heart, but it would still do damage.

Even if she thinks she'd be more blown away by him pulling the trigger if he doesn't at least kiss her goodbye first.

She moves slowly, deliberately, letting him track the movement without ever looking away. Her hand comes up, fingers braceleting his wrist above the biting metal, and she lets out a breath she doesn't realize she's been holding when she exerts a little force and he lets her move his hand away. It's just past the line of her arm when her other hand latches python quick around the back of his neck and pulls him in for a kiss.

The feel of his lips against hers sends sparks shooting all through her body.  _And he hasn't even opened his mouth yet..._ A quiet moan of delight escapes her and suddenly she's closer than a second ago, wrapped in his arms and pulled flush against him. He invades like an army, licking between her parted lips to steal the breath from her body, replace it with the air from his own lungs. She can feel the top of the cool barrel between her shoulder blades, above where his other hand is splayed wide against her spine. 

Every point of contact between them is alight with electricity, little closed circuits and feedback loops at the shoulder and knee and chest and belly and the tips of their toes and the length of thigh pressed to thigh, her lush curves blissfully crushed against his hard planes.

He drives them back until he can drape her over the hardwood, the gun skittering off into the darkness so he can bury his fingers in her hair. His mouth delivers bruising kisses, his tongue paints words on her skin, his hands unwrap her and lay her bare to his gaze as he devours her like a royal feast. 

They leave untold marks on each other, visible and secret, and lie panting in each other's arms as their mingled sweat varnishes the oak beneath them. He breathes promises into her hair, she writes her answers on his skin with her fingers. And when the bones have solidified in them once again, he pulls her up and takes her hand, pressing kisses to the back as they slip upstairs.

They don't have a lot of time before the cops show up, but once they're away from here (safe, together) they know they'll have all the time in the world.

 

_**2. Now you've set the scene...** _

"Hey honey. I'm home..." The words stop Beth cold a moment, as she rapidly assesses data and considers conclusions to draw. That  _could_  be Dean's voice, if he's still hopped up on painkillers and slightly slurring... and has somehow found that husky razor edge to his voice available in pill form.  _Cut the shit, Beth_. 

That's Rio's voice. 4 words and she's already reacting to it. The rush in her blood is only partially fear. This is either gonna end really well, or  _really_  badly. Her purse is discarded fast; short of swinging it or trying to use breath spray as makeshift Mace, there's no point being bogged down. She's got enough baggage to deal with.

"I woulda been here sooner, but I got tied up."

Forcing one foot in front of the other, she rounds the dividing wall and sees Rio - bloody, disheveled, handcuffs dangling from one wrist, sitting at the head of her table like some warped patriarch. She's momentarily distracted by the sinewy lengths of his arms under short black sleeves, and doesn't immediately notice the overturned chairs and looted holiday tableware strewn across the Berber carpet. Her mom's antique punch bowl looks like a forlorn mechanical turtle, and the unbroken candle holders barely register a thread of relief before she slides her eyes left.

There's Dean - wrecked buttondown, hands behind his back, damaged face that could be as much car crash as Rio's fists. She hopes it hurts. One of his lying lips is split and puffy, a little bloody patch near the corner. After all the shit he's put her through, now she has to save his sorry hide.

And he has the nerve to actually tell her he's sorry, the misery of the situation adding a believable sheen to her eyes and a quaver to her voice when she lies that he didn't do anything. Rio's still cuffing his neck like a puppy, and amusement flares in his dark eyes like coal embers. The harsh edge on his laughter is like stubble rubbing over her skin and Beth has to suppress the shiver sliding down her spine like an ice cube. He gets in a good swipe to Dean's jaw, a sort of halfway backhand smack, before he looks back at her, misreading her expression as the wrong kind of distress.

"Oh, I'm sorry," in a voice that says he's really not, "Does this - does this bother you?" Barely moving a muscle, Rio pulls Dean into a headlock and pins a frown on his face.

"Let him go." Her voice sounds too breathy to be convincing, she's fighting the arousal at his subtle displays of power _**that** hard_. He jumps on it, mocking her before flinging Dean away like he's something disgusting. She knows the feeling.

"I thought you wanted to be me." There's an earnestness around the edges of the hard mask, a slight lift in his brow that telegraphs surprise, challenges her to deny it.

He's only half right though; there are words missing. She wants _him_ , to be _with_ him, and about the time she'd figured that out he'd bounced her, told him they were done. The story she'd spun for the girls in the diner (if it'd been true) would've been as much about impressing him as showing him up. She could've kept the business going til he got out, made him admit she did good, made him admit he wanted her around. Made him  _keep_ her around this time.

If he thinks she didn't think this through, he's wrong. She's lost hours of sleep running through every scenario, every possible permutation until she's sick of alternate realities.

"It takes balls to do what I do," and even if she wears them on the inside, she knows she's got what it takes to do this, to be in this business, to be with him. "You wanna be the king, you gotta kill the king. This shit's medieval, darling." She tries not to melt at that, and the next thing she knows he's sliding a gun over to her. She has the reassurance she'd craved - he isn't going to kill her - but he's forcing a decision out of her, making her show what she wants.

She blinks the tears out of her eyes and grabs up the gun, willing her muscles to not shake as she levels it single-handedly at his end of the table.

"So whatchu think?" He teases, a hint of steel in his tone as he settles back in the chair, hands dropping into his lap. "You got what it takes?"

She knows she does, even without Dean's minute nod of encouragement and the heated dare in Rio's eyes. Her lips and thighs press together tight, she swallows, thumb easing back the hammer. And right before she pulls the trigger, she moves the gun to her left.

Dean's eyes probably go wide in the nanosecond before the bullet rips through his skull, but Beth wouldn't really know. Hers never leave Rio's, his never leave hers. There's blood and little bits of brain matter staining the curtain, and she can't quite form words yet or she might say something stupid like "how's that for boss bitch?" So she just loosens her grip and moves forward as Rio shoves Dean's corpse off the chair.

The gun hits the floor with a muted thud about the same time Dean does and she meets Rio about a second after that. He scoops her up in a crushing embrace and sets her on the table, her arms and legs winding around him as they share a heated first kiss. She tastes metal and passion, a little edge of smoke and the tang of copper under the essence of Rio flooding her tongue.

She claws his shirt up, skimming her palms over his skin before breaking the kiss just long enough to get the material over his head. Her tops are just pulled apart, eased off her body with frantic movements during kisses that go uninterrupted while his hands do their own swift mapping of her flesh on the way to the buttons on her jeans. She toes her boots and kicks them off, fingers nimbly working Rio's belt and fly and shoving his pants past his hips.

They break apart, drowning in oxygen and high on each other as she unwraps her legs from his and lifts her hips enough for him to pull the material clear. Beth lets out a little squeal as her ass meets cool polished oak, but Rio makes quick work of his own clothes and climbs between her waiting thighs and all thoughts that aren't verbs flee her mind.

His hand cradles her head as he eases her back onto the tabletop, just watching her a tense minute before she draws him above her and claims his mouth. Their tongues wage war a while and her hands fill themselves with his shoulders and the ridges of his spine and the firm globes of his ass. He trails kisses down her throat and sucks a ring of ruby marks around her collarbone, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise. When they have the time, he's going to spend _**hours**_ taking her apart and letting her do the same to him. Days and nights lost in each other.

Right now she's looking at him with a hunger he feels gnawing over his own bones, and he can smell her arousal over the blood and fading gunpowder, so he slides his hands under her thighs and adjusts her around him a little before sliding in in one smooth quick motion. He bites back a groan at the feel of her, instead dropping his head to swallow her whimper and giving her time to recalibrate. He feels her relax and pulls back a bit, balancing weight on his knees and planting his palms on the hard surface supporting her yielding softness.

He fucks into her gently at first, just relishing the hot wet slide and tight grip that tell him she's been untouched awhile even if she's been wanting him. Her skin is luminous in the pale light, and he wants to make love to her under moonlight to see if she'll full-on glow.

But his _reina_  is getting impatient, and a true king never leaves his queen hanging. He pushes up and sits back on his heels, pulling Beth closer and waiting til she's resettled her legs around his hips before he increases pace and pressure. He's dragging her onto him, hitting spots that make stars dance behind her eyelids, tension building at the base of his spine as she starts to lock up around him.

The orgasm rips through her like a full metal jacket and drags him along like collateral damage. When he comes to, body loose and cradled by hers, listening to her heartbeat running like a rabbit, Rio feels a bone-deep sense of contentment. He never wants to leave the circle of her arms, wants to wake up and taste her smile everyday, wants to know he has her to come home to - or hell, just accept she's gonna be by his side from now on.

He slips out of her, and kisses away her whine at the loss. They have shit to do right now, and time is slipping. So he laces their fingers together and draws her upstairs, where they share a quick shower and an even quicker round two against the smooth river tiles. He punctuates his rapidly formed plan with little pecks and licks, and doesn't let his fingers linger too much as he towels her dry and picks out her pjs and a robe. (He does slip her panties into his pocket, but that ain't nobody's business but his.)

He coaches her through the teary 911 call, and makes her stay back while he wipes the traces of them from the tabletop. It won't do for her to smell like chemicals when the cops show up. And by the time the sirens are close enough to hear, she's memorized the location of the burner cell they'll talk on for a while til the heat dies down, and he's committed the flavor of her mouth to memory (short term, because he _knows_ learning every inch of her is gonna take time that he's more than happy to spend when he's got it.)

The cops arrive as he slips into the night, trusting her to spin the story right, and get through the time they gotta be apart, and wait for him. She's putting a lot of faith in him too, and he's gonna make sure that sorry excuse for a male currently chilling under the dining table is the last one to ever disappoint her.

Rio's a man of his word.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so hopefully this works as a fix-it/holdover until we get a second season and see how this played out, because I know shows end on cliffhangers all the time but DAMN. that was a gut punch and I can NOT really believe they left it there. the writers are mean.  
> I'm gonna go stress bake and have some cinnamon Schnapps and then write some more fic because seriously... DAMN.
> 
> comments and kudos feed my soul.


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